Six Ways to Save Big on Gas with a Modern GPS

Fuel costs are outta sight, and it looks like the situation will only get worse. You’ll find lots of ads for “high tech fuel savers,” but most of these are gimmicks and rip-offs. But there is one high-tech device that really does save you fuel — lots of it. It’s your GPS Navigation System. Among the many other benefits your GPS provides, saving you fuel is one of its best yet unsung benefits. With fuel prices at all-time highs and heading still higher, it won’t take long for your GPS investment to pay for itself in fuel savings along. Here are six ways that a GPS Navigation System improve your fuel economy (and save you time and stress to boot).

1. The Shortest Route from A to B

Your GPS is programmed to find the shortest, fastest, most efficient route to your destination, saving you miles and fuel.

2. Get Help Planning Your Trip

A GPS greatly simplifies the process of planning your trip and finding the best routes. Higher-end units, including the Garmin nuvi 700 series, include multi-destination routing, a feature that will actually calculate your optimal route among several destinations on a single trip, ideal for realtors, delivery professionals and other, seeking to save gas and time.

3. Avoid Traffic & Bad Weather

Whatever the gas efficiency of your vehicle, your mileage can drop to zero miles per gallon as you sit in traffic while your blood pressure steadily climbs.A growing number of top-rated GPS models provide you with live traffic updates, alerting you to traffic ahead, displaying traffic problems on your GPS map, and providing you with options to take alternative routes around the traffic problems. Some units also provide weather updates to alert you of bad weather ahead. Read our reviews of top-rated traffic-capable GPS units.

4. Find What You’re Looking For Quickly & Efficiently

Often it’s not getting from A to B that’s the challenge, but finding stores, restaurants, or gas along the way that gets us lost. How many times have you meandered miles down a dark road, never finding the Taco Bell or Exxon station that the highway sign promised was there. In-car GPS Navigation Systems are loaded with millions of points of interest (POIs) and will let you find gas, food, etc. near your current location, along your route, or near your destination so you don’t waste precious fuel searching in unfamiliar places.

5. Find the Lowest Gas Prices from Your Car

Yes, we’ve all done it: Driving from service station to service station, trying to find reasonably priced gasoline. Sadly, that penny or two per gallon you save may only pay for the extra gas you burned shopping gas prices. Up ’til now, there haven’t been any good alternatives, but thanks to more companies connecting their GPS units to online networks, displaying current gas prices on your GPS is now possible. The highly-rated Garmin 680, 780 and 800 series all use MSN Direct to provide you with current gas price information instantly and will guide you turn-by-turn to the service station of your choice.

6. Never Get Lost

And finally, the obvious: Every mile you spend driving around lost is a mile of wasted gas (not to mention time and stress). With an in-car GPS Navigation System, you may have no idea where you are, but you’re never lost.